Review: “Practicing Affirmation”

Engaging critically with a book about affirmation is damned to appear churlish by its very nature. So, with little hope of seeming to be anything but a curmudgeon, off I trundle, hoping that my appreciation of the book will come through alongside any questions and concerns. And I do appreciate the book, because I have a constitutional inclination to consider what is still to be done rather than what has been done, and this is a helpful reminder of the rightness and value of affirming what there is of the image of God, in the best sense, in his creatures, both in terms of common and saving grace. Crabtree spends much of the first and quite lengthy chapter trying to demonstrate the Scriptural warrant his thesis – which I found instructive without being compelling, given the weight he assigns to this topic – with a fair amount of space demonstrating its compatibility with the distinctives of John Piper’s perspective. He moves on to address the simplicity and complexity of his proposition, before considering such matters as assumptions, mistakes, and correction (with what seems to be a fair amount of padding), closing with 100 (to me, sometimes cheesy) “affirmation ideas.” Again, while there is much to commend, I wonder if there may be more of character and culture here than Scripture: different people respond differently to affirmation and correction, and – while all need to be aware of the implications of overdoing either – I recall not only my own appreciation for the transparency and openness of American friends, but also their professed approval for the British capacity for straightforwardness and bluntness. All in all, I would wish to affirm this book and learn from it without endorsing its absolutism on the topic.